30kg

It was in the middle of scorching afternoon, my long sleeves were rolled up, my tie was removed. I didn’t bring the trolley as I didn’t expect the internal carpark would be full that day. So I parked at the open carpark, which was like half a soccer field away.

I carried the 30kg HP LaserJet 4Si, slowly inching my way to the office block of my biggest client at that time — Motorola. To fulfil an order on very short notice, so short I had to deliver it myself.

I was 21. Why I can remember this so well? Because it was that very afternoon I told myself: “Hang in there, Dean. It will get better!”

After several months of trying to please the client, I didn’t win the 500K, 350K, 250K, 150K maintenance contract. So it didn’t get better.

I was shattered, I broke down and cried in that very same, bloody dusty carpark.

I had eventually given up on that job. But I didn’t give up on myself. I continued to try to make things better.

But the more I tried to make things better, the more backfires I got.

They say: The higher you are the harder you fall. I’m having hard time accepting this. Why am I being punished for trying to go further?